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Welcome to "Remembering Wilma Rudolph"

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Closing Event at the Carver Library: Saturday, August 3rd, 2:30-4:30

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ENGLISH AUDIO

SPANISH AUDIO

A race begins long before they fire the starting gun. A race begins when they paint the starting line, string a ribbon across the finish line, and arrange the runners each at their own blocks. And when the starting gun is finally fired, it might look at first like all the runners start together and race together towards the same finish line. But look more carefully . . .

When Wilma Rudolph was born in 1940 in Clarksville, TN the officials had already begun setting up for the race of her life. Born a Black in rural American South, Wilma was already set back several starting blocks. Say the officials set her back five starting blocks for each marginalization. As the American South still saw Black people, girls and women as second-class citizens, she was seen as even further below that. The officials set her back ten blocks–five for being black and five for being a girl. She was born into poverty, with two working parents in a house very full of children, so the officials moved her blocks back another five yards. Being told that she may be too delicate to compete in such a physically rigorous activity at all, officials allowed Wilma to run from the safe distance of fifteen blocks back from the starting line.

Oh, and when Wilma Rudolph was five years old, she contracted polio which left her paralyzed in one leg. Her doctors told her she would never be able to walk again. No one even discussed if she would ever be able to run. (And if she’d asked the doctors could she ever become the fastest woman in the world, they just would have laughed her out of the room.) And after shaking their heads at her impossible dream, they suggested she leave the track altogether. But Wilma and her family had other plans.

Everyone believed that when the race began, Wilma wouldn’t have what it took to start. She would be lucky to finish her race at all. But Wilma Rudolph had certain fortuitous winds at her back. Perhaps ‘fortuitous’ isn’t the right word. Perhaps ‘Virtuous’ is a better word. Yes, I think it is. Wilma Rudolph had certain Virtuous winds at her back. Powerful virtuous winds, pushing her forward. Virtues like: Courage, Perseverance, Dedication, and Determination. And Love. Soooo much Love . . .

Including siblings and step-siblings, Wilma Rudolph’s family numbered twenty-two, though that wasn’t unheard of back then! — Similarly, many of the siblings still lived together in her family’s small home. With so many mouths to feed, it was an impoverished upbringing. but while her family may have been poor in money, they were rich in love.

Because while all those brothers and sisters meant that meals must be shared between a lot of hungry children, those same brothers and sisters sparked a lot of love that could also be shared between them. So much love, in fact, that although they didn’t even have electricity, it lit their home at night and on their darkest days.

Wilma Rudolph’s doctors told her she would never be able to walk again. But Wilma Rudolph’s mother, Blanche Rudolph, told Wilma that she would. And though doctors know a lot about how the body works, and how a body is likely to heal, mothers know how the spirit works, and what is possible to heal.

And so the virtuous winds of her mother’s Faith and her family’s Love blew Wilma to Meharry Medical College in Nashville, 50 miles each way, once a week, for two long years. It was the closest hospital that would treat Black patients in 1945. Wilma’s long journey to recovery began with the long journey to Nashville, which her mother made with her over 100 times. And then there was the homework . . .

At Meharry Medical College, the doctors and nurses taught Wilma’s family a special technique for massaging Wilma’s paralyzed leg that would help her muscles begin to whisper gently to her nerves again, to reawaken them so she might regain control of her leg. Four times a day for two years — FOUR TIMES A DAY! — Wilma’s brothers and sisters took turns massaging her leg at home. Love can take many forms. In Wilma Rudolph’s childhood home, for two long years, Love took the form of her brothers’ and sisters’ tired fingers, and the tedium of missed opportunities to go out and play with their friends, choosing instead to stay inside and rub their sister’s leg back to life.

Wilma Rudolph’s mother, Blanche Rudolph, was right. Through her unwavering conviction, and  through the commitment and determination of her brothers and sisters, Wilma Rudolph’s leg managed  to slowly recover, nerve by nerve, and step by step. She was able to walk again! In 1952, at the age of 12, Wilma Rudolph was finally able to remove her leg brace for the last time. And eventually, she was able to skip again, and jump again, and run! In fact, she healed so well, eventually she could do more than just run like her family and friends. . .

And where once polio had moved the finish line for Wilma Rudolph almost impossibly far away from the starting line, her family seized the ribbon, and retied it triumphantly, well within sight. And she’d forever feel the steady breeze of their Love and Faith and Commitment blowing against her back as she ran. And she ran faster and faster and faster.

In 1954, at the age of 14, Wilma Rudolph joined her school’s basketball team. She’d never dreamed of competing at basketball when she was a child. Not because she didn’t think her leg would ever be strong enough, but because in 1955, most girls had never seen women compete in sports at all, much less black women and girls. In 1955, there were so few bright stages on which female athletes could perform that most young girls had no female athletes as role models or heroes and if that is true for girls, it’s doubly true for black girls like Wilma. In 1955, Wilma Rudolph joined her school’s basketball team because she loved playing basketball. She had no dreams of bigger gyms or brighter lights. She just wanted to play the game.

It turned out, Wilma Rudolph was good at basketball. Really good. She was tall, she was skillful, she was competitive. And she was fast. Really fast. Her coach, a man named CC Gray, affectionately nicknamed her “Skeeter” because, to the players on the other team, Wilma Rudolph was as fast and irritating as a mosquito, buzzing up and down the court relentlessly. And you couldn’t help but notice her presence when she was on the court . Everyone noticed “Skeeter” when she flew around the basketball court, moving so fast she was almost a blur. The fans noticed. The coaches noticed. Her teammates and her opponents noticed. Even the referee noticed.

At one particular game, the referee was a man named Ed Temple, who happened to be an expert on what Fast looked like. Ed Temple coached the women’s track team at Tennessee State University, and one of his jobs was helping young blurs bring their lives into focus. Ed Temple watched Wilma Rudolph buzz around the court one game and invited her to come train with the Tennessee State University Tigerbelles women’s track team during the summer, so she might tap her potential, refine her technique, and aim her blur at at finish lines instead.

Every champion needs a champion. Ed Temple wasn’t just a good track coach with the ability to help young racers get faster. He was a great leader for young Black women, a great teacher with the broad perspective of a sociology professor, and the vision of an architect with a plan for a spiral staircase which could lead his girls from the poorest fields of the Jim Crow south to the loftiest and most level tracks of the world’s greatest colosseum. As their coach, Ed Temple taught his young athletes how to run faster, and to be the first across the finish line at 100 meters. But he also taught those same young Black female athletes that the real race, the invisible race, the important race, was won when they arched themselves proudly across the graduation line of college. Only then could they crown themselves winners for the rest of their lives, empowered to control their own destinies in a way that young Black women were rarely afforded. Every champion needs a champion. Coach Ed Temple was a champion’s champion.

So as a teenager still in high school, Wilma Rudolph began training with the women’s track team of Tennessee State University, the Tigerbelles, coached by Mr Ed Temple. The Tigerbelles taught her to be a better runner: how to start quicker, lift her knees higher, finish stronger, to make her fast body even faster. The Tigerbelles were a great track team.But the Tigerbelles were also a powerful and nurturing family, and they helped Wilma Rudolph learn to study, work, travel, and carry herself proudly, but carefully, through a world that rarely treated Black people with dignity. Every girl looked out for the girls in the lanes next to her. And the older girls always passed the baton along to the younger girls who were learning to run the next leg. And so as Wilma Rudolph trained to be a Tigerbelle, she began to win races. And as Wilma Rudolph won races, the Tigerbelles won races.

Think about those silent moments that must feel like an eternity, between when the referee yells ‘ON YOUR MARK’ — and then — ‘GET SET’ — and finally — “GOOOO” — snapping back to the instantaneous present at the blast of the starting gun. What a short time that actually is. Now think about this . . . When Wilma Rudolph was 12 years old, she removed her leg brace for the last time — ON YOUR MARK. When she was 14 years old, she joined the Tigerbelles and began training seriously at track and field for the first time — GET SET. And when she was just 16 years old, she made the US Olympic Team and medaled in the 4x100m race in the 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne — GOOOO! In four years, Wilma Rudolph went from limping around her farm in Clarksville to setting an Olympic record in the 200 meter qualifying heat. And to think that Wilma Rudolph wasn’t yet considered the fastest woman in the world!

In 1956, at 16 years old, Wilma Rudolph was the youngest U.S. Olympian on the team. As she stood on the bronze medal podium, she could look up and see the silver medalist one small step above her, and then the gold medalist one small step above that. And beyond the gold medalist, Wilma Rudolph saw an open sky, full of stars, and a glimpse of the opportunity to rise and take her place among them. The next Olympics would be in 1960, so Wilma Rudolph had four years to ascend.

The 1960 Olympics in Rome were the first to be televised live in the United States. Before 1960, if you had the time and money to travel around the world to the Games, you could witness the world’s finest athletes in person with your own eyes. And few very fortunate Americans were able to do that. But in 1960, for the first time you didn’t need to travel to the Olympic Games — the Olympic Games could travel right to you. YOU could have a front row seat for every race, right in your living room. And so, many more Americans could watch the Games with the same excitement as if they were there themselves. And not just the fortunate few who had wealth. As long as you had access to a TV, you could watch the Games. Every Olympic Games introduces the world to new heroes. In 1960, the televised Olympic Games in Rome introduced a new hero to young poor Black girls in America.

You never know, when you’re running a race, how fast you need to be to win. You never know how fast the other competitors can run. And so you run just as fast as you can, as fast as your body’s strength and endurance will allow you to run. And you hope that’s fast enough. With her mind set on the top step of the podium, her dream set on a gold medal, and her eyes set on the finish line, Wilma Rudolph ran just as fast as she could, in three different races. And she overshot the podium and placed herself squarely among the stars. In three events, she won three gold medals, broke three Olympic records, and claimed two World Records. Wilma Rudolph was the fastest woman in the world. Ever.

The celebration back home, in the American South, was complex. Wilma Rudolph was truly a star and a public phenomenon: she was the subject of a government-produced celebratory film documentary, a special guest on all the biggest television talk shows, the honoree at numerous parades and parties. But . . .How celebrated can you feel for finishing first, when back home you’re told you must still wait at the end of the line with the rest of your community? How celebrated can you feel when they give you the key to the city, but then tell you and your community to use the back door to get in?

Her triumphant return home to Tennessee was promoted as ‘Welcome Wilma Day!” At her insistence, the parade and banquet were the first ever fully integrated events in Clarksville, TN. Wilma Rudolph had just won three gold medals, and even though this was a victory she could’ve celebrated alone she made sure she used her influence to create a celebration that involved everyone who supported her.

Important as it was, hosting an integrated event in Clarksville, TN was not the only victory that Wilma Rudolph was able to achieve during the celebration of her gold medals. After her incredible performance in the 1960 Olympic Games, everyone wanted to see Wilma Rudolph run for themselves. All of a sudden, she had become track and field’s brightest star and biggest draw, so she was invited to compete in the world’s most prestigious track and field meets, many of which had never included events for female–much less black women–competitors before. And since the hosts of these events wanted Wilma Rudolph to race, they needed to invite scores of other top female track athletes to come and compete against her. In this way, Wilma Rudolph’s fame opened the competition gates for many other female athletes, as well. And once these gates were open, it was much harder to close them again. Though Wilma’s individual victories are beyond comparison and deserving of such celebration, her role in expanding inclusivity in the track and field realm cannot be overlooked.

Wilma Rudolph’s coach, Ed Temple, used to tell all the Tigerbelles: ‘Let track open doors for you. Then let education keep it open.’ When Wilma Rudolph retired from track and field in 1962, at the age of 22, she was the world record holder in three events, still the fastest woman in the world. The door had seemingly been flung open off its hinges. So wide open that Wilma Rudolph herself could mosey in and out of the sport at her own pace, in her own time. And it was swung open so wide, it gave lots of children, young girls, young Black girls especially, a launching pad to dream bigger because they’d seen Wilma do the impossible. And just as Ed Temple had taught her, Wilma Rudolph finished her degree in Education from Tennessee State University in 1963, propping that door open in her life forever.

Every race in life is a race against yourself, and a race for yourself. Can the fire of competition inspire you to run faster or further than you’ve ever run before, or faster than you thought you could, or maybe faster even than you were told was possible? Before anyone has ever been ‘the fastest in the world’ or ‘the fastest woman in the world’ or ‘the fastest Black woman in the world’ — they were first ‘the fastest they have ever been for themselves,’ standing atop a podium next to themselves-of-yesterday, who pushed them up to the top step through their own hard work, determination, commitment, and courage.

Those among us who lead the way, bring the rest of us forward with them, toward a future where all the starting blocks may align, and where we are all privileged enough to aim for the same finish line. Wilma Rudolph has handed us the baton and left us with a growing lead.

Thank you for joining me for Storytime at the library! If you are in Austin come join us tomorrow August 3rd from 2:30-4:30 for a closing event. Stay tuned for a youtube posting of a slideshow of the story when i get it together, a work in progress.....and enjoy watching the 2024 Olympic track and field events this week!